In the beginning of 2016, I had just gotten a new job in a province away from home. I had successfully completed my honours degree the year before. Everything seemed to be going great. I was adjusting from being a student to a full time employee.

However, one day, I woke up and my life had changed.

Now I’m suffering with chronic depression, anxiety disorder and post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). When I started this blog, I felt optimistic about my recovery. I was hoping I could help someone who was going through a similar journey. Now I’m having trouble sleeping at night. I toss and turn. My brain is constantly thinking, buzzing. Those few moments I do get to sleep, I end up having nightmares about the person involved in my trauma. By the time, the sun rises, my body is exhausted from the lack of proper sleep, making it hard for me to function during the day. Leaving me depressed and feeling like Dracula.

I won’t lie, I’ve made some strides in dealing with the PTSD through the help of professional help, family and close friends. I’ve even started drawing again to distract myself. There were times when I would completely forget events, randomly lose my balance, suffer from insomnia. I went for CT scans and did an EEG. It was scary. Now I don’t tense up at the smallest of reminders of my trauma. However, there are still those triggers that retraumatise me. They open up old wounds. I thought by talking about it often enough that I’d have come to terms with it but I still haven’t. It still haunts me.

For me, life has become a cycle. There are moments where I’m in fine. I can laugh and joke with people. I feel hopeful. Then, in the middle of that laughter, depression sneak up on you or something/someone triggers the trauma. Being in that negative cycle feels like living in Hell. Each day feels too long and gloomy. You feel trapped, as if things will remain the same. You start becoming physically sick.

This is why I’ve passionately become an advocate for mental health awareness because I’m speaking from experience. I know how hard it can be. I know how hard it can be to speak up because you feel like you’re going to start boring people with your problems, or that they won’t understand.

Text Widget

This is a text widget. The Text Widget allows you to add text or HTML to your sidebar. You can use a text widget to display text, links, images, HTML, or a combination of these. Edit them in the Widget section of the Customizer.